The Scariest Staircase - Highmore, South Dakota

hello everybody and welcome back to small town murder express yay and choo-choo yay indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petra gallo i'm here with my co-host i'm jimmy wisman thank you folks so much for joining us today on another crazy wild edition of small town murder express they're always crazy oh yeah this is no exception we got some wild stuff for you in a real rural you know kind of salt of the earth kind of area where there's some bad stuff going on i love that that's that's so great i love when it's just this place where they're like oh it's just everyone here's perfect so nice and everybody treats each other so well and then they murder each other and then we talk about it so except for this guy except for this guy so we'll get into that in a minute before we do certainly head over to shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets for live shows everybody after the summer is when they start up again september the 18th at the paps in milwaukee not a ton of tickets left for that so if you want to get in there i'd get those tickets now and then the next night september 19th we are in minneapolis at the state theater those yesterday get those also don't listen minneapolis you don't want don't wait don't you don't want milwaukee people to embarrass you by by coming out stronger so do that and we'll see you next time and then also september 3rd or i'm sorry october 3rd in dallas october 16th and 17th in san jose and sacramento and then uh terrytown on november 13th boston november 14th so that is the schedule get your tickets shut up and give me murder.com listen to our other two shows to crime in sports which if you like cult stuff you want to check out the series we're currently doing on crime and sports it was on the uh yahweh ben yahweh cult and um because one of the main enforcers and murderers of that cult was an nfl football player so it's real good not a lot of sports involved in that just a lot of murder and cult stuff so that's a lot of fun check that out also your stupid opinions it's just the funniest show going you got to check it out you know what it is it's hilarious we make fun of people's reviews of things so that's good stuff get yourself patreon as well you need it patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material there's a ton of it anybody five dollars a month or a bunch of dollars you're going to get everything we've ever put out including as soon as you subscribe hundreds of back bonus episodes you've never heard before it's like almost 400 it's a whole feed in its own and then you get new ones every other week one crime and sports one small town murder you get them all just take them every bit it's all yours uh this week what we're going to do for crime and sports it is nothing to do with sports we're going to talk about hostage situations that have happened in the past and some crazy shit that occurs during them because after we did that stockholm one i started getting deeper into it and it's it's pretty interesting then for someone that held that uh radio station hostage oh i do i do remember that they just wanted to get their tape played that's all they wanted but that girl stole the old the master cop unbelievable what are you going to do um yeah if you're pissed on it if you're younger or older than us you will not understand this at all what we're talking about but it's a movie reference for a small town murder we're going to do cory richards part three because there's so much to cover her sentencing was wild because all of her kids statements came in which completely contradicted all of her statements to the police so she i mean it's why and then her allocutions insane she's her faces she's nuts she's outrageous we'll get into it there that's patreon.com slash crime in sports that's where you get all of that so do that right now you also get everything we put out ad free as well all the regular shows crime and sports your stupid opinion small town murder ad free and then on top of all that you get a shout out at the end of the regular show too so you can't beat it get in there patreon.com slash crime in sports crime in sports that said i think it's time everybody here we go i think it's time to clear the lungs here what do you say arms to the sky and let's all shout shut up and give me murder let's do this everybody okay let's go on a trip shall we we are doing it too we're going to south dakota this week yeah oh yeah we haven't been there in a while and south dakota is interesting south dakota and we haven't done a ton in central south dakota that's the thing a lot of it is kind of on the edges and uh like deadwood on the one side this place is right smack in the middle of north of south dakota i mean the middle of nowhere uh it's about three hours to sioux falls to the east about four hours to deadwood to the west and then it's about 50 minutes to our last uh south dakota episode which was in pierre which is how they pronounce pierre because they hate french people and uh is is this bordered by idaho this is bordered by a lot of south dakota it's right smack in the middle okay yeah in the west side what's over there on west deadwood oh yeah yeah wyoming and montana and all that stuff yeah montana is between that and idaho um the last episode was episode 650 so it's been a bit uh that was a deadly blame game was the name of that that was a wild episode this is in hyde county h-y-d-e or so it can be high you never know like high park yeah um area code 605 although they hate the french and anybody else like that so i doubt they're pronouncing it um area code 605 population 779 here not a lot pretty people people well i have way more cattle probably 779 not a lot a median household income here slightly below the national average it's usually 69 000 here it is 60 208 dollars but that's affordable if you've the housing the housing prices here median home price here 111 300 that's amazing less than one third of the national average is what that is that's incredible um the motto and i'm telling you some ad company back in the day went around and said we can make money just giving the same motto to every town that hires us a great place to to what do you think work and play to live work and play that's the motto we've seen that about 30 times already someone out there in small town murder listenerdom please compile how many towns have had that motto i bet it's a word they pay for it yeah i bet it's and see if you can trace it back to an ad agency here now um history of this town the reason it's called high more is because it is on in the high plains it's a high elevation so they call it high more for some reason um apparently the founding had some some rivalry here um which is probably because of the fact that it's a high elevation it's a high elevation it's a pretty normal for the late 1800s in 1882 developers a.e. van camp and e.o. parker why did no one have a first name back then by the way no one had one uh established competing business districts along parallel streets so my mind's here and yours is here yeah and we're gonna fight it out um iowa avenue and commercial avenue creating a unique kind of a dual main street layout back to back yeah most small towns don't have like double main streets and they do they still have it um so the county's formal organization here uh was in 1883 and there was a lot of disputes over where the county seat was going to be and all that crap as we know by 1884 they smoothed it all out um now this place high more was the place that the south dakota attorney general so the attorney general of the state jason ravens uh ravensborg struck and killed a pedestrian in 2020 oh fuck absolutely absolutely um yeah he said that he discovered this is crazy there's a guy walking on a rural stretch of highway and he fucking hit him and killed him and how with his car yeah i get that that's the joke yeah not with a clothesline out the window obviously how how the fuck do you do that on accident he was driving home from a fundraiser and apparently hit this guy he said he called 9-1-1 after the crash and didn't realize he'd hit a man until returning to the scene the next morning he said to look for the deer he thought he hit which is weird he was and he hit a 55 year old man named joseph bover which is um pretty fucking what uh yeah there's still there's still investigation going on into it and he's coming home from a fundraiser which you know what they have at fundraisers do they have the alcohol a little bit of booze i'm not saying that's what happened but you know what i mean he's driving home in a rural area you know perhaps giving somebody a ride home that was leaned over the seat while he was we could have a ted kennedy situation yeah there's so many speculations you can make here a lot for him and if you don't out the next morning right yeah that's the problem that's the issue there what the fuck sir yep he said he called 9-1-1 right away but nobody ever found this dead guy except for him the next morning so i don't know what happened here that could be an episode in its own uh reviews of this town here's five stars it's only one review of the entire town that i could find um highmore is the small town that you hear about on every tv show and movie it's the place where you know everyone's first name and cars it's the place where you know every single person in your school and are friends with mostly everyone highmore is home great place to get a backwoods drunken uh get run over by a roadhead blowy also great place to get run over by a politician on the way home from a fundraiser what an ass All right. So things to do here. There's only a couple old settler's days is one of them. Yeah, it's a three day deal. And Jesus, there's not a lot going on here. There's a lot of rodeo stuff. Ranch rodeo at Highmore Rodeo Arena. Rodeo Roundup Club. Yeah, that's that's pretty much a lot of that rodeo. And they're like, let's run it back tomorrow. They have a parade and the theme is celebrating America, which just reminds me of Drop Dead Gorgeous when they're doing the theme for it. It's the same every year. It's American made, you know, salute to America, celebrating America. Same thing where they have floats and all that good shit here. Ice cream, roast beef meal at the fire department. I mean, this is some small town shit. There's bull riding also, which is sure, of course, bull riding. I'm not it says there's music, but I'm not really finding any music. You know what it is. Yeah. Chase more. We get it. What's going on here? I just fill it in. Just grab two first names. And that's a guy. That's the guy or the lady or the lady. Yeah, she might be trying to do that. And there's also a sunflower festival, which is just sunflowers. No Little Miss Sunflower. I mean, it's just come look at the sunflowers, really. I think there's like sunflower seeds. You can get like a sunflower smoothie. Well, sunflowers run wild and sunflower season. It's so awesome. In some areas of the country, you're just driving down the freeway. It's just as far as the eye can see down the stretch. Beautiful. So that said, let's talk about some murder here. Okay. Okay. Let's talk about Tanya Jean Bush Bushler. B-U-E-C-H-L-E-R. She'll only be Bushler for a very short time in our story anyway. And then she'll be ASAP. ASAP. Oh, like ASAP. Like the guy writes. A-E-S-O-P. Yeah. But with an A. With an H. So I'm going to say ASAP. Now, she's born October 8th, 1949. Tanya is. She grows up. Seems to have a pretty uneventful life from what I can gather. Nothing crazy happened to her. She grew up here? No, in South Dakota. Yeah. I can't find a lot on her childhood or anything like that. So usually that means uneventful for the most part. Yeah. I'm assuming 4-H and Sadie Hawkins and all that good shit. And that's what's going on. A little bit of FFA later. Yeah. So October 8th. October 1975 is when she marries David George Asaph. He's about three years older than her. And essentially, they build their life on a farm outside Highmore. It's a pretty big farm. They have five kids. Holy. Farm equipment. I mean, it is an agricultural family living on a farm in the middle of goddamn nowhere. David runs the whole operation. So much work. He's the farmer. Tanya trained. He trained as a nurse over the years and ended up working part-time at a hospital and a clinic in the next town over. So she gets out of the house at least a little bit, which is good for her. Pretty much anybody with five kids should be a certified nurse. I think right away. I mean, you are one. You are one. If you've raised five kids, you're a nurse. Oh, man. Yeah. That's scary, though, when they try to be their own nurse and teacher. That's scary considering they have no training for that. But she actually has training. They have training for it. So it's good. Yeah. I mean, don't go nursing or teaching anybody else's kids. No. Or your own. You're a nurse. Or your own, really. I'll take your advice. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you live out here, you kind of have to be, too. It's kind of the middle of nowhere. You've got to learn some first aid stuff. They own and lease 4,844 acres of land. 5,000 acres. 7.5 square miles. That's enormous. Enormous. That's so big. Square miles. Think about that. You own 7.5 square miles of shit. That's too much. So the thing is, that's their life. So it seems like they have a pretty uneventful, you know. They're that old picture, the American Gothic there with the pitchfork and the guy. That's who they are is essentially what you're picturing with their kids in the background here. But by the 90s, things start to kind of unravel a little bit here for them. I mean, they've been married 20 years at this point almost. It's pretty easy to have some baggage. Apparently, Tanya, she wanted something on the record. What do you mean? She went to the police, the Division of Criminal Investigation she went to in 1993 and says she wants something on the record. She's not reporting a crime. She doesn't want anything done or any arrests made, but she wants to put something on the record. And this is the DCI agent Dan Jahala. And he said, quote, She had fears that she thought her husband may try to kill her if she tried to divorce him or that he knew people that would have that done if she tried to leave him. So she wanted it on record with law enforcement that I'm not leaving my husband right this minute and I haven't been threatened or anything. But I'm pretty sure if I leave and he and I end up dead, that's where you should look first. Basically, put that on the record. She hasn't threatened me. Nothing. Nothing illegal has happened yet. Nothing that I want to report or that I want, you know, investigated or anything like that. But she said if it ever happened to me, he would make it look like an accident. Do they take those reports? You will take any report you give them, I guess. I mean, why not write it down? Who cares? You're sitting there. I don't know if they take that. They'll take that as a report. They'll take a report about anything. Really? Fuck yeah. You can take they'll take a report on anything. Literally. Especially if we don't have to do any legwork. Fuck yeah. We like that report. We just want. We want it noted and put in a file just in case. OK. So she didn't even want to take his business card because she was afraid David would find it and know it was going on. So she's like, I don't know. I just want to let you know that. And even if he doesn't put it on the record, if she ends up dead, he can go. That's the same lady who talked to me and said this. So it's something, you know, to look at. So she told the agent that David demanded she account for every penny she spent. And so the the DCI agent advised her. Well, why don't you leave the marriage? It sounds like you're not happy. You should probably leave the marriage. And she said she wasn't ready because she was afraid of what would happen if she tried. So she sounds like she needs like a cow. She needs a counselor, not some cop to talk to at this point. You know what I mean? Yeah. Sounds like she needs somebody to encourage her to go. Because this guy's just telling her, why don't you leave then? And she goes like, yeah. And he goes, all right. I guess I'll write it down. But so the agent said she. She wanted us to be aware that this was going on, what her life was like. So in the event that something happened, we were already aware of the issues in her relationship with her husband. Does that answer everything? She needs a friend. She needs a friend. Yeah. A friend, a fucking therapist, a, I don't know, a particularly friendly cow she can talk to. Somebody. Well, he may have already. She thinks he knows people that get people gone. I think. A farmer, all he knows are bulls. But how many, how many degenerate farmhands that go from place to place, as you know, transient, you know, rumors in small towns about ranches that there's a lot of commands got seven and a half square miles to make her disappear that too. And he, and he, and he's probably hired 150 criminals over the last 25 years that he can go back in his little, you know, crime rolodex with alcohol and drug addiction problems. Now she does have friends. She tells other people of her fears as well. It's not just the cops, but she wants that on record with the cops. She told her sister, Robin, that if David killed her, he would make it look like an accident. She told a priest, which that's going to for counseling, a priest, Father Anderson, that she was afraid David would kill her. She told her friend, Jan, that she was afraid David would kill her. She told a coworker, a doctor, that David verbally abused her and shoved her around. She told her cousin, Vicky, that she felt threatened by David and that he verbally abused her. She told the same thing to her friend, Carol. She's told a coworker and friend, a woman named Wilma, that David verbally abused her and shoved her around. She told a car salesperson, Janine Rathart, that David was going to kill her for spending money, which that could be. I mean, oh man, he's going to kill me when he finds out how much I spent on that. People would say that casually, but still. If you come home and you replace the cabin air filter, we will have words. There's going to be something. I can go to AutoZone and do that in five minutes. No shit. But this is to buying a car. She told her divorce lawyer, who she'll talk to later, Lee Bird, that she felt threatened and that if David killed her, he would stage it as an accident. Then she told the DCI agent to put it on record. And two of Tanya's coworkers were also told that she would not walk. They were told that she would not walk in front of a vehicle if David was driving it because she was afraid he would just run her over and say it was an accident. You know, like the attorney general. Yeah. That's how things go in South Dakota. If you hit a guy, they go, I mean, you know, there's a lot of space. Sometimes you get hit by a car and it just gets done. Call tomorrow about it. What? In the morning, I'll go check it out. So one of their daughters said that their mother was, quote, treated like a slave. That's how she put it. That's so good. not really accurate either, 'cause she is allowed in the main house and sleeps in there and stuff and you know. is allowed to leave, and, you know, that sort of stuff. Come and go at will. You know, things that slaves weren't allowed to do. She gets to eat with the family? Oh, yeah. She's even allowed to eat with the family. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So, wow. So 1994, from the outside, if you looked at it, they look like a farm family. Looks like everything's going great. Unless you were one of Tanya's friends who have told her, you know, told a sob story and a horror story, too. So in 1994, Tanya goes to a Sioux Falls divorce lawyer. Fancy, going all the way to Sioux Falls, which is three hours and change away. That's all day. You've got to want that appointment. The grounds, she alleged, were extreme cruelty. She said David abused her mentally, physically, and verbally and described him as a husband who needed to control everything down to the penny. So that's what she wants. Now, sometime after this, she withdrew. She withdraws everything and says, never mind, to the divorce lawyer. Pulls the divorce away. Pulls the divorce away and goes back to the farm. It was never filed. She was filling stuff out and getting it all ready, and they never filed for divorce, technically. So she just says, never mind. That still costs money, doesn't it? Oh, to get him to prepare it? Yeah, I mean, he said, I don't give a shit. Still billing you, but you can take it back or not. You'll be paying for it. You're still paying for it. So she returned to the farm, and she said it was for the sake of their five children, which at the time that this was going on, were nine to 17 years of age. So this would just, I mean, a divorce would, that's a real tough age group of five kids to put a divorce on. It's all of their formative years. Not one of them are not in. Everybody's home still. It's tough. So she kept her nursing job, and she just went back to what she was doing here. They actually end up seeking counseling together. So he goes to, David's willing to go to counseling, but it didn't help any, basically. Nothing happened. So a few more years go by of, I assume, uncomfortable silences and, you know, outbursts. Terrible dinners. Terrible shit, yeah. Terrible, awkward dinners. Yeah, like the old SNL sketch where you just hear their knives going, and Will Ferrell starts yelling at everybody that he drives a Dodge Stratus. It's that one. I drive a Dodge Stratus. Yeah, that's the meal, though. They look at each other. So David, in 1998, is arrested for DWI. Uh-oh. Which is not good for him. What year? 98. And he's convicted that same year of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a completely different incident. Wow. So David had some drinks in 98, let's just say. A couple of times. Which I don't know how the fuck you could live on a farm and not be a goddamn alcoholic. I can't believe you'd leave the house. I can't drink. That's what I'm saying. I'd be done with the farming shit, and I'd be like, well, I gotta go to bed in about an hour if I wanna be up at four, and I better start drinking. Stare at these cows and drink fucking whatever I've got in the fridge. Whatever. Angrily. Yeah, just swig that shit. Menacing snarls. Grunt at the kids when they ask something. And then you take a drink. So their daughter here said that during the 1999, harvest season, their father was especially shitty. Which it seems like he's going through a period of some pretty decent alcoholism is what it sounds like here. So she said that her mother stayed home from her nursing job to help on the farm so the kids wouldn't have to miss school to help. Yeah. Because there was a lot to do. But during the harvest season, that should be the time that you smile the most. You're about to get paid, babe. I guess, but it's also a lot of work, I think. It's the same thing. So October 1999 here, things are going very bad. And Tanya decides, I got to get out of this now. She's done. She's done. So she emails her daughter. One of the funniest emails ever here. Well, this is just the beginning of it. Okay. This is an email from her to one of her daughters where she says, quote, dad is being a poophead again. Which is a great line. I don't think I can take another three years, which is when the last kid would be out, basically. I'm looking for a place in Falkton. Which is where she works. I'm just tired of the whole mess and I'm going to file for divorce. Okay. Now what she needs here to be able to get out of everything here, because she's kind of planning everything and setting it up like dominoes. She needs a car to get out. You can't leave without a car. How the fuck are you going to do that? So what she does is she wants to buy, she's going to buy her own car and she has her own money in a separate account from her job where she has money. She's been saving up. So she goes to horror motors, in Aberdeen and she apparently bought a car and she told the assistant sales manager here, you know, later on, she ends up calling the next day, freaking out. This woman said she was quote, frantic, bawling, screaming and hollering. She was calling to find out whether the dealership had cashed her check yet. Oh, and they said, Tanya told the dealer here that her husband was going to kill her because she spent, some money, even though it was from her account. So she bought the car. It was like, I'm doing this. And the next day it was like, Oh God, what's going to happen when he finds out, which is, I mean, screaming, not just like, Oh boy, this is going to be inconvenient. Like, Oh my God, he can't find out like, which is great. $36,000 out of my account. He's going to flip. He's going to flip. Yeah. So November 7th, 1999, Tanya takes off. Oh, she's gone. Um, while David is sleeping, she and the youngest of the five children, uh, move to an apartment. She takes a couple of the kids. Yeah. Cause a couple of them are, are gone by now. They've moved out of the house. Uh, they're 16 year old. Uh, uh, they take the youngest of the five children. Yeah. This is the daughter I think here. Okay. So Tanya decides to move out. And basically this is fucking crazy. When she moves out, this is how to the penny. This guy is. David makes her sign. A list of everything she took from the home. What? So she can't say she didn't take something and blah, blah, blah, which would be fine. If we're talking about German Barabans that are untraceable and like, you know, fucking, you know, a Faberge eggs or some shit like priceless China, things of the jewelry, things of that nature. No, no, no. This is down to a jar of salsa and a box of fudge brownie mix. A box of men, a box of men, not even completely. Completed brownies. Everything down to things that cost three 29. Yeah. And the salsa from what I understand was open. So like a three quarters open bar, like already had some chips, dipped salsa and a box. What about that? A can of pace. I want that dog. Yeah. Bring away. Where'd the rest of my salsa? Where'd that go? Imagine that. Imagine your wife leaves with your kids and your biggest concern is where's my fucking salsa? I bought, I brought some Tostitos home tonight. Now this is bullshit. Meanwhile, it's a jar of it. It's, it's not good. It's a, it's a shit jar of salsa. And once you open a jar of salsa, that's only good for like a week and a half before we weird shit starts growing. Yeah. Before that, like weird line forms around the lid and then you start getting mold in it and shit. You got to go through a jar of salsa pretty quick, a crusty ring around that falls in it. And you're like, ah, you got to pick it out. I'm going to have to eat that. So that's, that's what's going on here. This guy, she's not bullshitting when she says down to the penny, he's cheap. Yeah. He says, I want my half jar of salsa and I want it now. Yeah. So she took it. I want that documented. Wow. Cause if we're splitting it down the middle, I get a sixth of that. She owes me a third of a jar of salsa at this point. And I'd like it. That's half of what I get out of that jar. I'm entitled. I am entitled to that. And not for nothing, half a tray of brownies. If we're talking serious here, does the labor to make them count? I mean, I don't think he would count it, but yeah, it should count. It should count towards something. Shouldn't it? Yeah. So November 16th, 1999, she calls her divorce lawyer, Lee bird to reinstate the divorce from 1994. Hey, can we get that going again? Remember that thing five years ago that you probably threw out all the paperwork. He's like, you're going to have to fill that out again. I don't have the form from back then. So he noticed a difference in her immediately from 1994. He said in 1994, she'd seen beaten down and just kind of meek. She said now quote, she was sitting upright in her chair. She was, she had a lot more confidence. He said, this bitch has got swag in her. Now she comes in. That's right. Motherfucker. Yeah. Fuck him. I'm out. You know how much fucking salsa I got at home. What's up? Bring it. I got the swagger of a gal with a box of uncooked brownies, a chick with some Duncan Hines ready to go right now. So he also said, this is what Tanya wrote in her filing here. David has become so controlling over the years that we have become virtual prisoners on the farm. Okay. So that is November 16th. Now, November 18th, it is a 1999 9 30 AM here. Okay. Tanya drives to the farm to meet David. They have a joint appointment in town with a court services officer, about one of their son's juvenile cases. got in trouble one of the kids is a problem he was probably shooting up signs or some country horse shit that's i don't know what he could have gotten into on a farm really he stole somebody's fertilizer what are we talking about you would be shocked how bad these motherfuckers are they're bad but i'm saying where what is there to get into it's there's they own seven and a half square miles so you they'd have to go so far just to get off the property to get into something that's what i mean shooting somebody else's cows or something yeah that's what i'm saying i mean i don't think they're holding up liquor stores probably because there aren't any no that's the only you're recognizable they might if there was liquor stores to hold up but so they ride into town together in david's pickup not her newly purchased car so right away he's driving now late morning after the meeting david drives tanya to the bank so she can make a deposit then the two of them sit down with an attorney in highmore to discuss the divorce sure okay all right here's what it's weird now david believed that this attorney he arranged an attorney and said okay if you want a divorce this is how we're going to do it and he thinks that this attorney is going to represent both of them and it's just going to be an amicable split and it's do that no not at all but in his mind yeah in his mind he can control it if he does this you know what i'm saying so he doesn't know that she's already hired another lawyer yeah and she's just trying to keep him at bay so she just goes yeah i'll come and meet with the guy sure like you know sure acting like she's going to go along with it yeah she's with him so at 11 10 a.m the high hyde county sheriff mike volick uh sees david and tanya driving in david's pickup truck headed back to the family farm it's only because they know everybody knows each other that they would even notice them and he waves at them and that's that so 11 43 to 11 55 david and tanya call their oldest daughter rebecca who is currently in italy as a exchange student nice so they got it together i would say she said where's the farthest from this fucking farm i can get i know italy that nothing like a south dakota farm nothing you can't get far in culture you can't get farther away than that my brother is the biggest fuck up in town i'm doing nothing like him my parents are getting divorced and ocean yep i've been trapped on this thing yeah i want some guy in a vespa with a shirt open to call me a very sexy lady and then take me for cappuccino that's what i'm looking for my fingers through clean chest that's what i'm looking for here it doesn't have dirt and manure in it yeah so they talk for 12 minutes because i'm sure that's an expensive call in 1999 um oh that's crazy that's a real expensive call so one o'clock tanya has an appointment with her priest father randy phillips at the parish office in fogden at 1 p.m is the appointment she never shows up oh and the priest said she's normally pretty reliable so she thought he thought that was odd but who knows she's got a lot going on right now yeah i think it's odd that there's a catholic church up there but okay that's what i agree with that um fascinating who knows um so at 108 p.m david calls an implement dealer in miller south dakota asking about a radiator cap he says he needs for farm equipment yeah okay at 208 p.m david arrives at the dealership in miller south dakota an hour after he called to buy the radiator cap um now he said that the guy the guy at the implement dealer said that he didn't seem to be his usual self david he said normally he likes to give you a hard time and i was surprised he didn't he comes in and breaks balls and now he's just coming and getting the cap and leaving so that's where he is now 301 p.m david calls the former hyde park or hyde park that's by the way david calls the former hyde park that's by the sorry the former hyde county sheriff okay and this former the guy a guy named martin wartman and tells him that tanya fell down the stairs and died oh that's what you call the current sheriff motherfucker that i always say this and people never call the cops first when they have someone dead in their house ever on this show when you watch documentaries they always call a family member first they call their mother they call somebody they trust a guy that doesn't do the job anymore is it i don't know if it's that people don't trust their own eyes or like they have to tell someone they're close it's even in cases that aren't murder or anything like that people tend to call other people first for some reason i don't know why have we trained ourselves to gossip before it's a problem well i think you go you go for emotional support obviously i mean that's clearly it i don't know this person's dead in my house isn't exactly gossip no but that's what i mean it's not exactly calling for to fix the situation you know what i mean no but it's it's i need advice of what to do when the answer is the same every time you got nines and ones on your phone motherfucker well use them why'd you call this number yeah i don't why are you calling me that would be terrible but that long story but i have been called in this situation right go what qualifying cops don't call me yeah with a dead body dead body natural causes but a lot of people call me to say oh freaking out i go you're screaming at the wrong person call the goddamn cops will you then call me back when you're done i'll i'll help you pick up the pieces but you gotta fucking at least sweep them into a pile first you know what i mean i can't go find them i'm glad i'm the bottom rung fuck man or the cops jesus christ so he calls and tells this guy the retired sheriff that he was friends with wow so it's a familiar guy who is a you know at least there's a law enforcement connection an ex yeah he would know who to call or where to call yeah so then at 3 16 p.m 15 fucking minutes go by i don't know if they he was on the phone with this guy for 15 minutes or what but 15 minutes later he calls the current sheriff 15 minutes later mike volick the guy who saw them in the pickup truck that morning yeah and he tells them yeah tanya's dead is what i just saw you guys well now she fell down the stairs and died so there's that that's it so you might want to come over and take care of that so at 3 45 p.m the youngest daughter calls she called to talk to her mother at 3 45 david told her that she couldn't come to the phone right now i mean he's not lying it's the truth she said he said she's busy and i asked again and she said he said she's outside those are both incorrect those are wild fucking lies and he knows it's incorrect yeah very much so so then 3 55 p.m the sheriff finally arrives there's no one's in a rush here i know i get that the farm moves at a slower pace but for christ's sake and he told the sheriff she's dead she's dead at 3 16 it took this guy fucking this long to get here that's crazy so anyway um he shows up he finds david coming out of the bathroom when he goes into the house oh i was taking a shit don't go to the door the fan's going yeah he said when he saw him he was very calm and not emotional at the time so david tells the sheriff that he had moved this is crazy he says yeah i moved tanya's body yeah why'd you do that this is why so you just why'd you do that you destroyed the crime scene is what you're saying here you idiot wow i moved your body he said yeah i didn't want the moment he was telling the cop that he was just got done washing blood off his hands and he was just wiping it down with the towels he's like i'm just destroying all the evidence you know just uh holy shit just hanging out destroying things making it impossible to really do a physical crime scene here you know that kind of stuff welcome to the crime scene you're a half hour late then volick looks over and notices the washer and dryer are running oh my god and he inside the washer we find the washer and dryer are running oh my god and he's inside the washer we find the out is David's work coat, and inside the dryer is a pair of jeans, a mismatched pair of work gloves, underwear, shirts, socks, and a towel. He didn't. He just cleaned the crisis. He just said, well, I'll just clean all this up. And he sorted the loads. He put the coat. Yep, put the coat in separately. Well, the coat's got to go on a gentle cycle, otherwise it'll mess it up. The other things, you know, we go regular. It's amazing. So, it's in there, and the cop fucking turned the washing machine off. And he said, who started the washing machine? And David turned the machine back on. What?! And then said, someone else must have started it. Who the fuck else is here? It's you and a dead person. Who the hell. Which one of you started this? Out of you and the corpse. She's really into housework. You gotta let it go through a cycle, sir. Yeah, by the way, it's halfway through the rinse. What are we doing here? It's gonna be itchy if you put that on. What is going on? This is what I mean. No one takes this like seriously like a dead person is here. When you shut it off, if he goes to turn it back on, you have to tackle that person. He just turns it back on. Someone else might have started and they just go, well, okay. Stop doing things. This is like fucking Fargo meets brain damage is what this is. It's unbelievable. Fargo, they had, you know, Frances McDormand was a good cop. She was putting the crime scene together at least. These people are just like, who turned the machine on there, buddy? And, oh, someone else. Well, okay, then let it finish. Well, you gotta. It'll smell. It's going to be all musty. You got to at least let it spin. That's amazing. So Tanya's body was at the bottom of the basement stairs where he said she had fallen. He said he moved her, but then she's at the bottom of the stairs, which is weird. And he said, yeah, she fell down the stairs. Now, there's no blood on the stairs. There's no blood on the railing, no blood on the walls, no blood like dripping down the stairway or anything like that. There's no blood here. So she tumbles down a flight of steps, and the steps are completely clean, which seems off. She tumbles down hard enough to die but never cracks the skin, which seems a little odd. So David tells the cop, he says, well, you know, she apparently broke her neck. I mean, that's, you know, I'm not a medical examiner or nothing, but, you know, I would say she broke her neck. Then he said, yeah, I moved the wife's body. He said, they said, well, did you attempt to revive her? And he said, no, I just, I called the sheriff, talked to him for a while, you know, caught up on him, see how he was doing. It took a while to get here, so I didn't think that that was necessary. They called the old sheriff first. And, you know, he didn't seem real concerned, so I just threw a load of laundry in and stuff. And you know how it goes when your wife's dead at the bottom of the stairs. Felt like neither of you thought there was any bringing her back, so. You know, fuck it. No one seems in a rush. Everyone seems. Now, by the evening. By the evening, the investigators arrive here. They get there at 525. So then it's another hour and a half for the investigators to get there. And the coroner doesn't arrive until 7 p.m. Or at any of the lab people either. Wow. The lab director, the criminalist people who do the crime scene shit and collect evidence, and the coroner. None of these people show up until 7. This is insanity. I don't know if they're far away or I'm not sure here. I assume everybody's keeping it together while they're not there. One of the disadvantages of living in the middle of nowhere, or advantages if you want to kill someone in the middle of nowhere. You have a lot of time to do laundry and clean up. So he said, and it's this crazy thing, too. He said, yeah, I was just washing up. Yeah, that's how it worked there. You know, he said, they said, well, you didn't try to revive her. And he said, no, because I knew she was dead. No, there's no reviving her. No, I mean, on the farm, you would know when things are dead. You've seen a lot of dead things. And, you know, life and death happens on a farm. So they go and they're going to talk to David. They end up interviewing him three times this night. Never at a police station. Always in his own living room or dining room. Just sitting at the dining room table. Real cash. Real chill. In the crime scene still, you know. Amazing. So the first one is about 13 minutes. Just a, what'd you guys do today? Where were you? I was here. Then I went there. Real quick once over. Just to get the timeline. The second one's about 45 minutes. And then. And then the third one interviews about 60 minutes. So not very long here. They give him no Miranda warnings, no attorneys in the room. This is all real casual of what we all know each other. And this is, you know, real casual. What happened with your wife? Like it's so not legally like no, it's like it's 1915 or something. This is almost the year 2000 already. Like we have crime scene procedures that we do, but they don't. So they say that. He's pretty calm. Still real unemotional. He's making coffee for people. Hey, you want a cup of coffee? Gets up and makes it. He's given people tours of the farm. What? It's real weird. Real weird. They say that it's not like, oh, he's okay. Then he breaks down. They said his demeanor never changes. He's just like, you came like he invited everyone over for a barbecue all day long, all night. This is where we milk them. Where's their dead body? Where do you keep your corpses? Oh, that's at the bottom of the basement steps. You know, so he talked on the phone with family members between talking to them. I mean, you know, just walking around. He walks around the farm. He showed Lindbergh, the one investigator, his machine shed, made everybody coffee for the cops are drinking the coffee to make the drinking this guy's coffee. This is way too casual, way too small town. So they sit him down. The first interview, he says, yeah, you know, he helped Tanya load some Christmas decorations in her car after the call. And he said, I left for Miller to get the radiator cap. I was gone about two hours. I came back and I was working on my trailer. And then when I came in, there she is at the bottom of the stairs. I don't know how long she was there. I wasn't even hearing when it happened. I have no idea. Then they sit him down for the slightly longer interview. Not very much. And he says, well, Tanya sometimes feels dizzy. She gets dizzy spells. Oh, is that right? Maybe she tripped over the Christmas decorations on the stairs. That could be a thing. He says, he says, he's pretty sure he's, quote, pretty sure it wasn't him that hit her and knocked her down the steps. Pretty sure. 20 minutes ago, he said, I was an hour away when it happened. I don't know. Now he goes, pretty sure I didn't knock her down the steps. Why do you even say that? That's wild. And he said that they said that there was some blood on the left railing. He said, because they said there's no blood on the stairs. He goes, well, there was some blood on the left. Left, left railing. But I wiped it off. I had to clean it up. It's gross. He said, you know, the kids are coming home. I thought they were coming home. So, you know, you clean up the blood. You know, I saw some pesky fingerprints. I got rid of those. Like, what are you doing? So he's cleaning the crime scene blood. He's done laundries, watched blood off his hands. So they said that we said when I moved her, I got blood all over me. That's why I was washing up in the bathroom, you know, getting all of her blood all off of me. Can't have that on me. It's gross. Yeah. So. They said, OK, before he said, but I never laid a hand on her. I don't know what you're talking about. So then the cop says before the third interview, why don't we go down to the sheriff's office for a quieter setting? There's a lot of stuff going on here. And David said, I'm pretty comfortable here. Let's just finish. I don't I don't want to do it at the at the at the dining room table. And the cop says, all right, and keep. No, take him to a fucking interrogation room. Make him sit there for two hours. Do do all the cop things that you do when someone's dead. What are you doing? Cop things do those things, stupid. So, yeah, it's crazy. I don't know how they're going to get anything out of this. What fucking evidence could they possibly have? Well, at the during the third interview, he says some some things there. They start getting a little more accusatory because it's pretty obvious that the story is what happened. Very off. So at one point he says, quote, if you're accused. If you're accusing me here, maybe I should call my lawyer. And then they blow past that. And he says, don't you think I should talk to an attorney? You know, at one point. And none of these things are. I want an attorney. Yeah. At one point, he says to the cop, you're making sense, Mike. I'm just afraid. I'm just afraid to admit to anything. Maybe I should have an attorney. I'm scared to death. Exactly. It gets more interesting. He said. Then he said, I should really call Jeff, my attorney. Everybody's on the first name basis here, by the way. I should really call Jeff, my attorney. I don't know. I really can't. I maybe can add a little bit to it, but I just I can't. Because they're trying to get him to elaborate on some stuff. So after the last after the one he says there, I maybe I can lend a little bit to it. After that, the cop says, David, you add something to it, please. For our sake, just add whatever. Just to try to get him to talk. Fix it. Fix it. So David says, well, I mean, maybe there was, quote, a little pushback. There was a little pushing and shoving out in the garage before she fell down the stairs. He said, you know, they argued because he was too harsh on the kids. So that's why they were arguing. And there might have been a little pushing and shoving. OK. I thought you were an hour away. Might have been slight domestic abuse is what that is. You know, there was a tussle. No tussle, as O.J. always put it. We were tussling, wrestling. He called it wrestling and tussling. That was O.J.'s all the time. So imagine wrestling with your wife. That's crazy. Having a tussle. I've never had a tussle with any significant other I've ever had. No tussling. Ever. I've never wrestled a soul. Never happened. Tits get in the way. No good. Air. Fuck. All of it. So he says he freaked out when he saw her at the bottom of the stairs. And then he left her there and drove to Miller for the radiator cap and didn't go down and see if she needed help. That's his story. OK. OK. His story is there was some pushing and shoving. And then when I saw her, I just went, well, she'll be fine. And I went an hour away to get a radiator cap and came back and went, whoops, she didn't get up. Shit. What he said is we pushed and shoved out in the garage. Then I saw her at the base of the stairs. That's it. Then I went and got a radiator cap. Sir, that story has so many different spots that got to be filled in. And why are you doing laundry and why are you covered in blood and why are you washing yourself off and what's going on here? Right. So at about midnight on the direction of the state's attorney. Because, you know, the cops wouldn't fucking do it. They arrest him. The state's attorney said his story makes no sense. His wife's dead. Fucking put cuffs on that guy. And they were like, oh, sorry, David. Oh, it's all right, Mike. You know, I get it. You're doing your job. So miss that damn coffee, sir. Wow. He's released the next day. Hundred thousand dollar bond. So he has to put up ten grand in cash and he must report daily to the sheriff's office to show that he hasn't run away. Which seems real old school. Get up to a hundred. - Is that a 24 hour head start? It's all you can get. If you call and then hang up the phone and get in the truck. Not call. He has to go to the sheriff's office every day. He can't call. Because then, you know, shit, he could be fooling them. He could be calling from Jamaica for all they know. But if he pops by the station and gets in the truck and starts driving, he could be 24 hours away before they even fucking think about him. I don't think they're real good at any of this. So I think they're bad at shit. So the daughter here, this is Rebecca, he said or she said, quote, he told me that she'd fallen down the stairs. My first impulse was, what the fuck did you do? What did you do? Yeah. The other daughter here, Jessie, who was the youngest child at the time, she was 16. She said that her father was not kind to her mother. She said, quote, he would call her fat or stupid or a dumb woman. So he's abusive. He said. She said that she said her father was drunk and physically threatening her mother during an argument in the summer of 99. And, quote, he told her if she didn't shut up, he would throw her through a wall. Oh, he used that one. Throw you through the wall. He used that one. Very common. Back in 99, that was a pretty common. Yeah. I don't think I've ever threatened. That's like a dad threat. Not to a woman. That's what I mean. I just heard that threat. Or a woman. That's a threat your dad would say to you when you're 12 and being an asshole. I'll throw you through. Fucking wall. Put you right through the fucking wall. So the autopsy comes. They perform it the next day. And remember, he said she fell down stairs and that was it. Here's what she has. Quote, a blackened left eye, a large bruise on the left cheek, a through and through laceration on the lip. So totally split the lip open. Tooth went through. A large impact abrasion on the left side of the skull where the skin had been scraped away and a smaller one on the right side. Petechial hemorrhage. Which are the bursts in the eyes and the skin associated with strangulation on the right temple and lower right eyelid bruising along the left jawline and the neck itself. A voice box bruised on both the left and right sides bruising on the left collarbone, four or five fractured ribs abrasions on both knees and the left ankle torn pantyhose at the knees and left ankle and a bruise on the back of the right hand that they suspect. Was a defensive injury when you're trying to block your face. So unless she got dropped from an airplane down the stairs. Oh, she jumped down those stairs. That's the craziest list of injuries for unless the stairway was, you know, 14 stories long. And she tumbled down it, but only landed on her head the whole way. Her head, her neck, her voice box, you know, strangled, beaten stuff inside her skull. They found bruising under the scalp. In both the left and right backside of the skull with skull fractures on both sides above and behind the ears. Oh, boy. Injuries to both sides of the head, suggesting an impact with a hard surface, then a separate blow. It's not just one shot to the thing. No underlying natural disease, no broken neck, nothing obstructing the airway. So, OK, she wasn't choking. So the conclusion is cause of death is manual strangulation and blunt head trauma. Wow. Which does not happen from falling down the stairs, obviously. They said they couldn't. By the way, this is a carpeted flight of stairs also. So these injuries are not happening going down a carpeted flight of stairs. Those are my favorite ones, by the way, to lay like. And shoot down. You can fucking shoot down those. You can slide right down. Those were great when you're a kid, yeah. Yeah. So she's all fucked up. Now, in the garage, when they look, do a crime scene on the whole house, the stairwell is very clean. The garage. The garage floor is not. Oh, the garage has scuff marks on the floor. On the lower inside panel of the garage door, there's blood spatter that matches Tanya's DNA. That's not good. Under a car parked in the garage is a clump of hair that belonged to Tanya. And the floor appeared to have been recently cleaned. Yeah. So the insurance guy, he has this insurance guy that we're going to talk about. It does all of this. You have it. You have an insurance guy. Everyone has an insurance person. So this insurance guy came over to visit because he's out on bond, came over to visit David and said that he can't make it to the rosary service because I have other things. I have something. I have a previous commitment. And David said, quote, I don't give a shit. She deserved to die. Oh, so he told the insurance guy. OK. Speaking of insurance, they also find out that David had two life insurance policies on Tanya, naming him as the beneficiary, totaling one point seven million dollars. That are payable by in the event she died by accidental means, you know, took a tumble down the stairs. Yeah. So a five hundred thousand dollar policy dated April 6th, 94, when she was trying to leave him, remember, to which a five hundred thousand dollar accidental death benefit was added later on. Then another second five hundred thousand dollar policy dated June 1st or June 21st, 1996, with a two hundred thousand dollar accidental ride. So that's one point seven million. The second policy, he had told his insurance agent that he wanted to cancel the first policy and replace it with a cheaper one. So the guy wrote it up. But David never canceled the first policy. He kept them both. He was fucking lying. So that's interesting. And the guy basically he kept paying the premiums and therefore keeping them current. Yeah, that's it. So November 12th, 1999 is when he had called. He called his insurance agent. This is. Six days before Tanya is killed. Oh, he called this agent and said that basically said that if Tanya died in an accident, he said, well, this is he's talking about the accident stuff. Please. This is just not about insurance. This is just chit chat with his buddy. And he's the insurance agent. Yeah. And he said, quote, I'm going to kill the bitch. You know, I can do it. Then he said, remember, she was the one that wanted the life insurance. Which this guy doesn't know that at all. Don't forget that. In the same conversation, David asked this man whether he knows how to transfer farmland into his son's name and all that kind of thing. Now, David's phone records show he was in contact with an attorney, not the divorce attorney, a different attorney during this week. Thirteen times he called this person in seven days. So David's bond, by the way, will later be revoked when he fails. To abide by the conditions of his release, which is funny. There's a long list of people he said incriminating things to, including a woman named Carol, who lives about nine miles from the farm, which is probably the next door neighbor, I would assume. Fuck. And she heard David talk several times about killing his wife, but she didn't think he was serious. I mean, people talk about, I'm going to kill my wife. You know how that goes. I guess David had told this woman once that he would rather have to get rid of his wife or have her. She said that she wasn't sure what he meant, adding that once he talked of hiring a hit man. What? She said, quote, he's not a stupid man. I can't believe that he would do it himself. Well, I got news for you. He's pretty stupid. I'm dumb as fuck. Her friend, Vicky, also said later that Tanya said in October her husband had been pushing, shoving and slapping and threatening to kill her as well. And yeah, she said when she had moved into the apartment, she. Everything was looking up. She said she looked beautiful and relaxed and happy for the first time. Several other people said that David was abusive and all of that. But there is one piece of evidence in his favor. One. What is that? Particle number 68. Particle. Particle. There was a piece of physical evidence here under one of Tanya's fingernails. Now, keep in mind, she just got with him at nine o'clock in the morning. So anything could happen before that. It's not like they've been together. They're exclusively in each other's company for a week under the fingernails. They they recover a tiny pinpoint sized clump of tissue that's described as skin like by the lab. They send it for DNA testing. It's male, but it does not match David. OK, so could be anybody else. So but it doesn't even signify that it's his kids or anything. No, no, not even that side. It's just a. OK, and they can't do anything more with it. Because the DNA test consumed the entire sample back in the night. Oh, shit. That's what happened. So there's nothing else to test. So all they have is they have this piece of skin that's not David's under her fingernails. So they're wondering, will the interviews, the three interviews he did at his dining room table, be allowed into court? Because he was never read his Miranda rights, mind you. But they said that, listen, and the detective even said, listen, I tried to steer David away from lawyering up. When he would talk about a lawyer vice. And this is standard operating procedure in an interrogation. They say you can call a lawyer. But if you do, that shuts off all your opportunity to tell us what the truth. We can't help you anymore. If you get a lawyer, not that they're trying to help you by putting you in prison. But that's what they tell you. We can't help you if you get a lawyer. We can't help you incriminate yourself anymore. We can't help tighten the noose around your neck anymore if you get a lawyer. So they said as a because in a custodial interrogation, you know, that this is something. But the basically he was not in custody. He was in his own house. Right. Making coffee, walking around the ground. They never followed him to. the bathroom, or they let him do whatever he wanted. He had run of the house. Well, I guess that means if you have run of the house, then you can say whatever you want. You're not in custodial, this is not a custodial interrogation. You're just talking voluntarily to cops. Now, they should Mirandize him if they think he's done anything, because that's the rule, but he's still not, whatever. The defense argued everything should be thrown out, but the court said that he was not being sweated. He wasn't being, you know, kept in a room. The questioning happened in his own table, in his own home, by his own choosing. He said, I'll talk to you. The agents told him, you don't have to talk to us. They never restrained him. It's in. Fuck you, David, which is tough. There's no exposed strategy happening, so that should let him know that he can tell them to get out of my house at any time. Absolutely. At the same time, if you're going to bring up anything about a crime with a suspect that you have to one inkling that he's a suspect. You got to Mirandize him, too. That's crazy. You got to do it. Maybe at that point, they didn't suspect it as a crime. Y'all, they had to. You got to. He said, I wiped the blood away. He's doing laundry. He said he moved the body. He didn't try to revive. Yeah, that's why they're talking to her. By the third one, they're like, dude, your story's changed, man. Your story sucks. The third interrogation should have been at least. Yeah. They needed to. Well, once they were real suspicious. So he's charged with first degree murder, second degree murder, first degree manslaughter, and that's to give the judge. A choice chance there. They moved the trial to a different county to southwest of Kennebec in Lyman County. The jury selection. And this is some small town shit. Oh, my God. OK. OK. When the two summoned jury panels were they went through by challenges and the people were all gone, they couldn't see enough people. It's a small place. There's not enough. There isn't a lot of people. So the judge ordered. The sheriff's office to, quote, go find more jurors. Go get more people, please. So a deputy named Rob Parker gets on the phone and he rounds up 20 prospective jurors. The judge asked them, how'd you find these 20 people? So Deputy Parker explained that he probably he said that he went to town to a coma reliance Kennebec, Presho and Vivian, these towns to try to get three people per town. That was the goal. Yeah. Just driving down. Hey, you 18. You are people. You are people. Are you an American citizen at all? So he went to town to get three people. And he said, quote, We started at the top letter a every third person down was getting called. They opened the white pages and called every third person. Holy shit. They said if they weren't home, then we went to the next three. It was time consuming. So we went we went, quote, I bet they're home. We called them. So when the door adored it, they did. When the judge said, did you call anyone you thought was pro law enforcement? He said, quote, half the list, I'd say probably not. He said, there's a couple of them. Definitely not pro and for law enforcement. After we talked to them, he said, most of the people that he called didn't even believe it. They had to call the clerk's office because it sounded like a prank call. Hi, I'm the sheriff from another county or I'm the sheriff from another town. Would you can you come to the courthouse? Would you come to the courthouse and be a juror today? That's not how jury duty works. Yes, my refrigerator is running. Leave me alone. Oh, my God. Yeah, I got Prince Albert in a can and I'll let him out. Don't worry about it. So he did. Obviously, the defense lawyer said this said that it looked like a systematic exclusion of Native Americans from the jury because the deputy said he didn't call anyone from Lower Brule and part of the Lower Brule Indian Reservation, explaining that a large number of the Lower Brule residents were from Lower Brule. And he said, well, I don't know. The residents from the original pool hadn't shown up anyway. So he said, fuck him. I won't even try. So the judge says, you can't do that, stupid. So he ordered him to go back and recruit from there the next day. You got to make it even. So they ended up three of those that he recruited that day ended up serving from the from the that had Native American surnames, a juror named Eagle Thunder deliberated through the verdict and an alternate named Middle Tent was excused before deliberations. Now, we got to go through this pretty quickly. But basically, the prosecution's going, it's pretty goddamn obvious what happened. She's strangled and beaten and there's no one else on the goddamn farm. So the stairs can't do that. And the stairs can't do it. The defense attorney's like, it's an accident. That's what they say. They say, well, why was he trying to transfer land to his son a few days before? And they go, who doesn't want their son to inherit their land? That's literally what the defense said. Yeah. So they they talk about the life insurance signatures and they say they're probably David's, by the way, and not Tanya. She probably didn't even know this was on her. It's pretty goddamn. This is a tough trial. They said that the prosecutor said divorce for him was not an option. That meant his wife would get at least half the farm and he wasn't going to tolerate that. A guy that had so much control that he made his wife sign for the fudge brownie she took from from the home a week before. He's not going to let her have it. He's not going to let her have an acre of that place. Unmade. That's unmade powdered. You need eggs still for this and oil. And he said the first mistake of marrying the defendant brought her years of pain and suffering. The second mistake was going alone with her husband to the couple's farm. That was her fatal mistake. It cost her her life. She was beaten from head to toe. You don't get that from falling down the stairs. This isn't an accident. This is first degree murder. OK. OK. So and they say. There's never been another suspect. The defense comes out and they go. There's a piece of skin under her fingernails. They've never they never even looked at anybody else. They concentrate her right on my guy right here. Then he says this is amazing. This case is not over whether David was a good man or a bad man. The fact that he's not a perfect husband doesn't make him a murderer. He's not on trial for being a bad husband. Right. Yeah. So they bring out the forensic pathologist. They bring out everybody DNA analysts. Then they bring out a physicist. Dr. Dr. Sammy Shibani. God, how am I going to do this fast? OK. He's an expert. He calls. He says he does something called injury mechanism analysis. Oh, a self-described blend of physics, trauma, medicine and engineering used to determine whether a given injury could have happened in the way someone claimed. He claimed he told the jury he was a clinical professor at Temple University, held four degrees from in physics from Oxford in England, and that he was a licensed professional engineer. And he was a licensed professional engineer. A quote all over the world. He says, I don't even charge a fee for this shit. I do it as a community service. I do it for the love of the game. That's it. The love of poking and prodding dead bodies. So he said, whichever way you slice it, it's impossible, not consistent with the laws of physics. Now, they had other just regular criminalists and crime scene people that said the same thing. The defense case, they tried. They really did. They brought on another criminalist who said that her position. Was postural asphyxia. And she was suffocated because of the unnatural way her body came to rest. And it's like, how did she get the bruising in her voice box? That asshole. Right. That didn't quite work. David testifies in his own defense. Awesome. He says he pushed her around in the garage a little bit, but she was a little bit dizzy and blah, blah, blah. And he said, when I found her, I cradled her head and got blood on my coat. So I dragged her body to the south side of the stairwell and I covered her. The blanket. So the kids didn't see her. And that's why I was washing blood off of me. That's it. And he said, during the interviews with the cops, I was just pretty much telling them what they wanted to hear. That's all. Okay. Interesting. So the defense closing is, come on. They concentrate on the particle, that little particle under the nail. And he said it got there by scratching. It was somebody's, but it's not David's. The jury disagrees and finds him guilty. Okay. It's a first-degree murder. First degree. Yeah, because it's too small. And he said, I'm going to kill it. It all lines up. So the sentencing, you, sir, may fuck off life without parole. Yeah. Yeah. So the prosecutor said, David was a cold-blooded murderer who had planned his wife's death for years. The jury found the truth. David will remain where he belongs, in prison, behind bars. Forever. Yep. And they said his testimony didn't help him. They said, we would have gotten him convicted whether he took the standard. Or not. But he certainly didn't help himself by doing that. No. Nope. And they said he has no remorse. Not an ounce. He's not shed a tear about this. And he never will. Wow. He hates her. Hates her. 2002, he appealed, basically based on the particle and based on all this type of shit. And the, he's going to kill me hearsay and all that kind of stuff. It's affirmed. Very quickly. Remember the Shabani guy? The self-styled guy? Huge scandal. He's full of shit. Guy's completely full of shit. What? Complete fraud. Complete fraud. He doesn't even love the game. He went in the Michael Peterson staircase case, which is similar to this case here. And he, the defense exposed him as a lie. The chair of Temple University's physics department wrote a letter saying, denying any claim that he's ever been a member or ever been affiliated with the Temple physics department. He's a fraud that way. Plus they said that, um, they said that this guy said he had to write the same kind of letter once a year. because Shabani kept trying to establish He was bona fides as an expert witness claiming a temple affiliation that doesn't exist. They said he had once had a loose courtesy affiliation at best and essentially got parking privileges. But he had no anything. No tenure or anything. No. So he's gotten a bunch of people new trials. A lawyer in Wisconsin said he's a fraud. Basically, he was trying to create himself as an expert so he could run around the country and testify in these cases. Why? And in a letter to the Associated Press, the lawyer likened him to Dr. Nick on The Simpsons. Hi, everybody. Just a complete quack. So the Justice Department acknowledged his resume puffing as well. And yeah, that's his bullshit. That's what it came. So then there's another appeal based on the scandal. And they said either way, you still would have been convicted because they had another pathologist saying the same goddamn thing. There's a federal habeas. This that doesn't go anywhere. 2014, they're trying to pass Tanya's law, which is a law brought by some professor, actually, that will allow a person to seek a divorce without proving grounds such as adultery or extreme cruelty. This is one of the few states at the time still had didn't have no fault divorces. What? Yes. Which, by the way, there's a lot of people trying to go back to, which is fucking insane. Get rid of that. Yes. Right now, there are three states. That have that require mutual consent for a no fault divorce. That's what? Where are they? One's Mississippi, which whatever. Tennessee is another one that fucking states nuts, too. And South Dakota. Those three. Currently, David is remains in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. Life without parole. And Tanya is at the St. Thomas Catholic Cemetery Cemetery in Falkton. So there you go, everybody. There is the farmer. And his wife and some fucked up shit. We'll go through the end farmer and the farmer's wife fell fuck man real quickly here. Definitely head over to shut up and give me murder dot com. Well, before that, give us five stars or whatever the hell on whatever app you're listening on. Give us a thumbs up on Netflix. It helps out a lot. Shut up and give me murder dot com. Get your tickets for live shows and merchandise. It's all over the place. Tickets for live shows. September 18th, Milwaukee at the Pabst. Get those are going fast. September 19th, Minneapolis. Get those. Because Milwaukee's outselling you right now. Don't do that. What are you going to do, Milwaukee? Come on, Minneapolis. What are you doing here? Then October 3rd, Dallas. October 16th, 17th, San Jose, Sacramento. November 13th and 14th, Tarrytown in Boston. Get in there. Get your tickets. Follow on social media at small town murder on Instagram. Small town pod on Facebook. Also, Patreon dot com slash crime in sports. That's everything you want there. Everybody. Anybody. Five dollars a month or above. You get everything we put out. As soon as you subscribe, you get hundreds of back bonus episodes. About 400 to be exact. New ones every other week. One crime in sports. One small town murder. This week, crime in sports. Hostage situations. Crazy shit that goes down. Small town murder. Corey Richens part three. Her kids said everything she said is full of shit. And they call her a bad mom and detail it. And she makes faces at it. And she allocutes. And she's full of shit. It's wild. I can't wait to get into that shit. So do that. Patreon dot com slash crime in sports. You get a shout out at the end of the regular show. You get everything we put out ad free. Yeah. You get it all, everybody. So do that. And keep hanging out with us. Keep coming back. You want to follow us on social media. Shut up and give me murder dot com is where you find all that. Keep coming back and seeing us until next week, everybody. It's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye.